


How to "Win" Friends and "Influence" People

by BiffStroganoff



Category: Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Genre: A Callous Disregard For Human Life, A Relationship Dynamic So Sketchy It Has A Body Count, Dark Comedy, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24551947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiffStroganoff/pseuds/BiffStroganoff
Summary: Chapter 19: "Lieutenant Colonel Korn was a loyal, indispensable ally who got on Colonel Cathcart's nerves. ... Colonel Cathcart was greatly indebted to Colonel Korn and did not like him at all. The two were very close."
Relationships: Charles "Chuck" Cathcart/Lieutenant Colonel Korn
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	How to "Win" Friends and "Influence" People

  
"Say, Cath. Want to hear an interesting fact?"  
"Korn, I wish you'd address me as 'Colonel' again. You've been getting too chummy lately."  
"Sure, Colonel."  
"Mmm! Splendid. ...You were saying?"  
"We don't actually have the authority to raise the number of missions the men have to fly. That's for Wing or higher to decide-- on paper, that is."  
"So I... I can't?"  
"Not on paper, no."  
"But... I did. I gave the orders and everyone followed them."  
"Yes!"  
"And... nobody stopped me."  
"Exactly!"  
"So what difference does it make, then!"  
"Precisely, sir!"

\--

Colonel Cathcart was never more insecure than when he was completely alone. He theoretically co-owned an idyllic farmhouse in the hills of inner Pianosa, and it tormented him to shoulder the agonizing wartime duty of vacationing there.

He was not a man accustomed to relaxation. His thoughts whirled tirelessly at all hours in contemplation of himself. And once the door was latched behind him, he became defenseless against his mind's wild oscillations and bitter barbs.

He paced back and forth. Lieutenant Colonel Korn, on his own initiative, had obtained the farmhouse for them through various suspicious and arcane means, and wasted no time in converting most of the rooms into storage for some kind of plum tomato racket that Korn had entered on their behalf with M&M Enterprises. Even here, Cathcart was pursued by reminders of his failures, crowding around him, attracting insects, lying bruised and sour-smelling in crates stacked floor to ceiling. He paced back and forth between the crates.

In the full Technicolor of hindsight, he helplessly picked apart all his recent successes and failures, then all the seemingly neutral interactions he'd had as well. He understood keenly that if he wasn't getting one-up over everyone else, he was getting one-down. Every man was a rung to climb, and every new development in his soap-bubble world of clout and stature could be a new feather in his cap, or a new black eye. Often, upon review, events shifted from the former category to the latter right in front of his eyes! He had to always keep vigilant.

Occasionally he took a single bite out of a plum tomato, remembered too late that he disliked tomatoes, and hurled the rest of it out into the dirt, feeling betrayed. Sometimes he posed in front of the mirror, the top button of his shirt rakishly undone, then studied how he looked with a second button opened, then went back to one. Three was definitely too much. Or was it?

Cathcart felt like the most miserable, persecuted man on earth.

He was the lonely center of his uncertain universe, and he was lost and adrift without a steady supply of other people to harangue into submission. To compare himself to others was to chase moving goalposts endlessly, but how else could he possibly know where he stood? In their absence, he strategized in charts and lists but never successfully drew any conclusions from them, except perhaps that everyone hated him and was out to get him. There wasn't even a buzzer in that house that he could punch until Lieutenant Colonel Korn came running to his side, to keep the wolves at bay, to rub his shoulders and mop his brow and reassure him that having so many enemies everywhere was merely a sign of progress for a forward-thinking visionary like him.

\--

Whenever Colonel Cathcart asked about it, Korn told him he'd have to keep going to that wretched farmhouse, if he was to maintain the rumor that he was conducting orgies with Italian countesses in there. Korn once went on to suggest that Milo Minderbinder could probably have such a thing actually arranged for him, if he wanted.  
"Will General Peckem be there?" Cathcart asked petulantly. "How about General Dreedle?"  
"No, I don't think so."  
"Then what's the goddamn point?"  
Korn's jowls puffed up slightly in soft laughter. Cathcart mentally awarded himself a feather in his cap, and didn't know why.

\--

Actually, a few weeks later, he figured out why. It was because he was jealous. He was so interested in his deputy commander because he wanted to be like him. The answer ate him up inside. Lieutenant Colonel Korn was a smug, nagging smart-aleck, and it manifested as being confident and decisive. Cathcart consulted him on everything, then immediately turned around and cursed whatever sick twist of fate had chained them together. Cathcart told him his secrets and grew comfortable in his presence, then resented him for knowing too much. Even reassuring himself that Korn was less successful, of lower rank, needed glasses, could not defeat him at arm-wrestling, and had only attended a state university did less and less to console him as time wore on. In the meantime, Korn was only making himself more indispensable. Cathcart thought Korn was an annoying sack of shit, but he also wasn't going to let anyone else have him.

Once, Cathcart mentioned off-handedly that he didn't like that chaplain of theirs hanging around Group Headquarters, and Korn had Chaplain Whats-His-Name neatly exiled to a tent in the woods within the hour.

Remembering the chaplain set Cathcart upon another circular loop of thought where he realized, with a start, that the only initiative he'd taken in a while without Korn's advice was the matter of Corporal Whitcomb's form letters of condolence. It was more accurately Whitcomb's initiative, but that was easy enough to overlook. The thought of Cathcart's new initiative kept him buoyant with a refreshed love of life, as he continued to bravely volunteer his men for every target he could. He hoped there was time to generate a suitably impressive number of condolence letters before the war ended. Basically, it was a black eye to cap-feather conversion machine. Each casualty that rolled in was a new piece of grist with which to increase the raw volume of form letters he could send out, each a testament to his deep and sorrowful conscientiousness. The higher the numbers ticked, the more frequently he caught himself, in private moments, puffing his chest out and smiling to himself.

It was one of the brightest feathers in his cap, and a reminder that he didn't need Korn after all, until he was told that it was actually Korn's idea all along. And he believed it completely, because the person who'd told him this was Colonel Korn.

Despite this stellar track record, Cathcart still didn't quite trust him, professionally or personally. Cathcart had never had many friends. The number diminished further if he didn’t count the childhood schoolmates who, it turned out, were secretly being paid by his parents to be nice to him.  
Cathcart almost dared to count Korn as a personal friend of his, but then again, Korn was being paid by America to be nice to him.

But in all his fantasies of being a great and noble general, his shoulders bristling with stars, in his ideal world where he was brilliant and everyone loved him and everything was perfect, he could still only ever imagine one person as his aide. From Korn, he obtained certainty. Cathcart had to wonder how he'd manage without him now, if anything should happen. There could be another poisoning or a stabbing or a bullet meant for him or whatever other dangers lurked among the ranks of his own lousy, scheming men. Didn't they know there was a war going on?! Cathcart grimly concluded that he wasn't sure what he'd do in the long term, but first, obviously, he'd raise the number of missions again. Oh, he'd have their goddamn guts for garters! He'd make them fly five hundred, no, six or seven hundred, fifty thousand, as many as it took for Wing to notice him! Maybe he'd even get an article in the Saturday Evening Post about his bravery in leadership, and the strength of his belief in his outfit!!! It was surely what Korn would've wanted.

"And you're sure I've got the authority to do this," Cathcart had asked Korn in that mild, damp February, in the uncertain beginning when he'd first laid his ambitions out before him.  
"Oh, of course you do, sir," Korn said, tranquil and composed. "It's all covered by Catch-22. And just between you and me, Colonel-- I think it's a great idea. It's just the thing to establish that you're not afraid to go beyond expectations around here."  
"Really?" Cathcart had just purchased his long-stemmed cigarette holder the day before, and the self-consciousness was setting in. He wondered whether it was really doing him any good-- it took effort to manipulate elegantly, lest it be exposed as the labored affectation it really was.  
"Yes. These days," Korn said, affecting conspiratorial camaraderie, "there are swarms of other group commanders who are only doing what's expected of them, you know. The time is right for a bold move. Shows 'em your bravery in leadership, and the strength of your belief in your outfit. Sir."  
Knowing he was at a critical juncture in his life, Cathcart had already warned himself to be wary of flattery. He really did. But he yearned to hear it. He needed words of praise to replay in his mind at night, in the way lesser men needed food and water. It was the only thing he could use to shield his tortured brain from itself.  
Unconsciously, he sat up a little straighter.  
Korn leaned back, triumphant, and folded his hands contentedly behind his shiny bald head.  
"Oh, and-- Colonel Cathcart?"  
"Yes?"  
"I like your cigarette holder. Very sophisticated."

\--

Cathcart and his cigarette holder had been inseparable ever since. As the months went on he learned to balance it adroitly between three or four fingers or his pouting lips. He was classically handsome, but only in a way that needed to be continuously monitored; beefy and very tall with ivory-pale skin that blushed easily with his many volatile emotions and had to be kept out of the sun. His affectations were all meticulously researched. With the help of various magazine illustrations, and a black-market full-length mirror Milo had bought for him in Naples, he added to his cigarette-holding repertoire a number of poses and angles calculated to highlight his intelligence and heroism.

("Korn? Should I leave one shirt button open, or two?"  
"Two," Korn said, not even looking up.)

However, in the high-stakes world he occupied, there was just as much chance of shame as there was of glory. More, even. As skilled as Cathcart was in losing himself in lavish and exhilarating daydreams, he was even more skilled at taking the slightest error and magnifying it in his mind into a catastrophic humiliation, an agonizing failure that he could never live down. He was always haunting himself in this way. Even as a child he'd been painfully sensitive to public embarrassment. He never forgot the feeling of powerlessness it gave him, to be born so goddamn sensitive, and he also never forgot the antidote: the first time he held a gun.

Still, his lifelong insecurity hounded him. Any distant snub from generals Dreedle or Peckem might set it off, and suddenly all his posturing would be forgotten. He would revert right back to choking down anguished sobs, and his sweatiest, most helpless self would start nervously chewing on the wrong end of his cigarette holder, or slamming it against the nearest surface, or throwing it across the room in a fit of pique, and then sheepishly having to pick it up off the floor again before Korn came over to reassure him. Part of him thought it would be very funny if Korn slipped on it and injured himself. Another, conflicting part of him also thought it would be very funny, but only for a short time.

\--

Once, Korn fell asleep at his desk and woke up the next morning with Cathcart's jacket draped over his shoulders. He was woken up by Cathcart storming in and demanding his jacket back. "I forgot my memo pad in one of the pockets," he fumed, pacing back and forth, his cigarette holder clenched in his flailing hands. "No! Don't look, I'll get it myself!! This was a mistake to begin with-- Give it here! I don't know what I was thinking. If you tell anyone-- Mark my words, Korn. If you tell anyone about this, I'll slit your throat from ear to ear!"  
(Still smiling, Korn assured him that he had already forgotten.)

\--

The cigarette holder was already well-scuffed by July when they'd held that mission briefing, the same one where he'd almost impressed General Dreedle by almost having Major Danby taken outside and shot. Before the first Avignon mission, or was it the second? It was probably the first, because he could recall being pleased that Lieutenant Orr wasn't going to be there.

Lieutenant Orr was another black eye on Cathcart's reputation, because Orr kept getting shot down and having to ditch his plane, but he didn't have the decency to actually die, leaving him around to likely ditch more planes, each of which were worth more than hundreds of grinning little Lieutenant Orrs. It was making them look bad.

Cathcart set Colonel Korn upon it, and Korn solved this problem without lifting a finger, by letting Milo Minderbinder steal whatever he wanted from the emergency survival equipment in Orr's planes. Then they only had to wait for the issue to resolve itself if Orr tried anything again.

Lieutenant Orr, who wanted to increase his grip strength, was also always squeezing rubber balls in his hands. He seemed to have a supply of them stashed away in unknown pockets at all times, and he flummoxed every attempt by Captain Black to get them confiscated by simply pulling out more rubber balls as soon as his back was turned. Orr was one of those guys whose ears didn't work unless his hands were occupied. The haunting knowledge that somewhere, somehow, Orr was squeezing rubber balls in his hands during every briefing, educational session, and movie drove Captain Black crazy, which was really just fine by everyone else.

One day, weeks later, Colonel Cathcart happened to see Milo Minderbinder rush into the officers' club to pitch another business venture to those friends of his who were never interested. People wholly unimpressed with him were the only people Milo seemed to trust.

On this occasion, Milo was holding a glossy, picture-perfect red apple, which he unsuspectingly tossed to Orr. Orr caught it perfectly in one hand. Then, grinning triumphantly, he held the apple up, made direct eye contact with Milo, and began squeezing it with his horrifying, rubber-ball-honed grip strength, until the apple exploded. The officers' club erupted into chaos.

Captain Yossarian got up to intervene, and across the room, Cathcart recoiled with primal fear in recognition of his nemesis, who had pursued him endlessly through his mind and was now surely pursuing him physically as well. 

Cathcart felt his pulse migrate painfully up his neck and stuff itself into the hollows of his skull. He staggered backwards from the bar, his face as pale as eggshells, and he almost fell over, but Korn stepped up from somewhere behind him and caught him perfectly. Korn was always stepping up from somewhere behind him and catching him perfectly. Cathcart didn't know what to make of it. It was one of the bullet points that puzzled him most whenever he doubted Korn's loyalty. Sometimes it happened in situations when Korn had something to gain, and sometimes it didn't. He ended up listing this point in both columns so that it cancelled itself out and he didn't have to think about it anymore.

Korn wriggled his shoe out from under Cathcart's heel. Cathcart had a broad and towering body, of which he was very proud, but Korn had a lower center of gravity, which aided him in putting a firm hand on Cathcart's back and deftly spinning him around and marching him directly out of the club.

"What are you doing?" Cathcart said, as he just let him do it.  
"Stopping you from publicly humiliating yourself again."  
"I thought you liked seeing me publicly humiliated."  
"Oh, don't worry. I do."  
"You-- wait, you can't say that. That's seditious!"  
"Don't worry about that, either--"  
"--Goddamnit, I always suspected--"  
"--I like being the one to save you even more."  
Cathcart dug his heels in. "What?"  
Korn reached up and chucked him under the chin playfully, but then immediately turned to go back inside. "If there's anything to handle, I'll handle it."

But Cathcart stopped him, squinting, trying to unearth whatever treachery was afoot this time. It was dark outside, and he impulsively shuffled their limbs around until he was cupping Korn's broad, square face in his hands. It felt as oily as it looked. Korn was only surprised for a moment, then just smirked up at him, his glasses askew. But he always looked so indulgent, so Cathcart still didn't know what to think. Some part of him, a new part that had appeared in his mind sometime after the briefing in July, wanted to say something else, but he blinked and the thought was gone. The initiative was a failure; he'd learned absolutely nothing from it. He let his hands fall pathetically back to his sides, and moved to save face by ceding control to defense mechanism #5, belligerent rambling:

"Korn, you're drunk. You don't know what you're saying, and you don't know what you're doing, either. Look-- look at my insignia, you smarmy son of a bitch. You see this? Look at my muscles too. I don't need rescuing. Why, I'd never disgrace myself by letting myself be rescued by someone who gives limp handshakes and only went to a state university. I don't even want to think about this anymore. You're drunk," Cathcart said, growing more emphatic as he grew more confused. "Let me drive you home!"  
"You mean to HQ."  
"Yes."

Cathcart's personal jeep was a hopped-up, fine-tuned machine. It was fine-tuned primarily to kick up dust and make an impressive, masculine amount of noise with every vicious struggle against inertia. Like any patriotic red-blooded American, he was obligated to love automobiles. Because he wanted to be four times as patriotic as anyone else, he pushed himself to love automobiles four times more than anyone else. Driving was his preferred method of traveling extremely short distances. He took the jeep for frivolous joyrides, and chortled merrily every time he sent pedestrians scurrying for cover. It was how he surveyed his kingdom every day. He enjoyed blaring the horn indignantly, and he enjoyed roaring up into screeching turns that sprayed dirt in wide arcs onto the faces of wimps like Major Major or the chaplain whose name he still didn't remember. Every maneuver he made with it was violent and sudden just because he could, and if he could get at least two wheels to lift off the ground it was even better. But this night, he drove listlessly and joylessly. He felt so defeated that he even used his turn signal.

"I'm thinking about Yossarian," he announced, apropos of absolutely nothing.  
"Sure. Heh."  
"...Korn."  
"Yes."  
"You still picking on me?"  
"Yes."  
"Why?"  
"What else is there for entertainment around here?" Korn said, with a sidelong look of feigned innocence.  
"Don't try to bait me into-- whatever you're trying to bait me into. It won't work."  
"I have no idea what you're talking about."  
"I mean-- uh-- how about watching that screaming guy who looks like a skeleton try to kill Captain Havermeyer?! It's great fun, happens every week."  
"Hm. No thanks."  
"...Then what're you snickering at now?"  
"Nothing. Watch the road, Cath."  
"I am, I am, geez! Quit nagging me--"

So maybe that was it, Cathcart thought, maybe someone as scintillatingly clever-- no!!!-- maybe a sadistic busybody like Korn wanted more than movies and baseball leagues to keep him engaged. He had a sudden mental image of his deputy commander as a young boy (still with a shaved head and square glasses), burning ants with a magnifying glass. He'd prod the anthill curiously with boiling water, or pesticide, or whatever else he could find. Just so he could watch how the ants broke rank and scurried around chaotically in a blind panic.

Cathcart felt that he understood.

"...Hey, Korn? Want me to raise the number of missions again?"

\--

As soon as he got back to his office, Cathcart got out his notepad and immediately added several new black eyes and one (1) feather in his cap to the list. Given this disadvantageous ratio, he was secretly worried that things would be awkward the next day, but Korn put his arm around him and assured him everything was fine. Cathcart raised the number of missions for him. In October, Lieutenant Orr was shot down over the Mediterranean, and they never saw him again.

\--

On another occasion, under cover of night, Cathcart got out his notepad and slipped a piece of cardboard under the top sheet of paper so the pencil wouldn't leave an indent on the rest of the pages.

In the cipher known only to himself, he wrote the header: "??!?!???(?)!!!"  
This was an effective form of shorthand because it spoke directly to his guts in bursts of emotion that resonated with him more readily than words. (All his memoranda, as General Peckem would pluralize the word, were also seasoned heavily with strong and assertive punctuation.)

He set diligently to work inscribing more coded messages to himself, until he had a T-chart, a bubble map, and a Venn diagram all dedicated to unraveling the topic of "??!?!???(?)!!!."

On the one hand, Korn was certainly going above and beyond the expectations of his post, and was an invaluable asset in helping him terrify his men into compliance. On the other hand, he knew that Korn had ambitions of his own, that he was too indispensable to be controlled, and that, furthermore, Korn kept using this status of immunity to make fun of him.

The situation was disturbing him because he had to untangle it alone. The only person he could ask for advice on the matter was, unfortunately, also Colonel Korn. And Korn was fully capable of saving him and betraying him in the same fell swoop, Cathcart knew, because he'd done it before.

\--

This was when it started in earnest: just after the inexplicable epidemic of moaning that broke out in the briefing room one day back in July, and just after he'd almost impressed General Dreedle by almost having Major Danby taken outside and shot. (He was still sometimes tempted to have Major Danby shot, now that he was ready, but the moment had long since passed. Responding so late would only be awkward.)

When angered, General Dreedle's entire face turned purple, except for his bloodless eyelids. He was a grizzled, powerful, arbitrarily-wrathful man who held many fates in his hands, and he had pale, wrinkled, scrunched-up eyelids that looked exactly like pieces of bacon fat. In the awkward silence after Major Danby was physically thrown from the briefing room, Cathcart felt the full awful power of General Dreedle's bacon-shrouded eyes focused upon him.

Everyone was frozen where they'd stood at the moment of Danby's ejection, as it dawned upon them that nobody knew who was going to conduct the briefing now. Secretly, Cathcart knew least of all, but he was worried that General Dreedle might expect him to do it. He was worried that General Dreedle now associated him with a failure to keep his subordinate officers in line. He was suddenly struck with the new, additional worry that General Dreedle might think his long cigarette holder made him look like a sissy.  
He had gone from striving tirelessly to impress General Dreedle to holding himself completely still, and hoping it came across as the dignified repose of someone who was not responsible for anything, and not the raw confused terror of a small prey animal.

When Colonel Korn stepped up from somewhere behind him and took control of the briefing, Cathcart almost began weeping openly in relief and gratitude. He was already blinking away tears before he realized that he'd been betrayed! The tears immediately vanished.

That day, Korn put on a didactic voice that was sharp and clear as he took the stage. Korn always walked with a disdainful sort of swagger, and his uniforms were loose and disheveled. Cathcart was regularly annoyed by this dishevelment and often tried to intervene, but it turned out to be intentional, cultivated to send a calculated message: 'Such corporeal concerns were beneath him. He was competent enough to do whatever the hell he wanted.'  
And when Korn started conducting the synchronization of their watches, his voice was commanding and flawless. He gave them the colors of the day with flair and confidence. The entire time, at every opportunity he could find, he was casting sidelong glances at General Dreedle, courting his favor, showboating for him, giving him prolonged simpering flirtatious looks with every adroitly-enunciated turn of phrase.

Colonel Cathcart felt sick to his very soul, as he was forced to helplessly watch Korn review the anticipated weather conditions with such clear delectation at being in charge. Korn swept the pointing rod across the map like the careless hand of a god. His posturing only ramped up in intensity as he gained momentum, and soon his face lit up with a vainglorious smile. Little uneven dimples appeared on his cheeks. He had an intelligent, swarthy, baggy-chinned face and wore rimless square glasses, which were now catching the light and reflecting it back in flashes that alternately hid and highlighted his piercing dark eyes. When viewed in profile, the light got trapped between the thick lenses, lending a glowing quality to the glass. Cathcart, transfixed with breathless jealousy and unable to look away, had to spitefully admit that Korn cut a fine figure up there on the platform, even if his clothes almost sagged right off him. He had vex appeal. He was stocky in build, his body alternately square and rounded, paunchy under a shirt that was always coming untucked. The shirt was coming untucked now, warm wrinkled fabric riding up from his belt a little bit more with each time he strutted around the platform, or gestured elegantly and subtly with his entire body. His sleeves were rolled up. At one point he flexed the pointing rod between his hands like a riding crop. Cathcart went white-knuckled.

Nobody in the audience was moaning anymore, and he almost wished they would start up again. Korn held a control over the room that made Cathcart feel terribly ill and a little weak at the knees. Unopposed, Korn moved on to improvise a pep talk-- he didn't even have to do that!-- that was both forceful and rousing. He transitioned seamlessly into a review of his key points, then circled back to the weather conditions. All the while, he kept glancing coyly toward General Dreedle, the one man his briefing was really for. His eyes fluttered. Cathcart bit his lip to keep himself from moaning enviously at the fantastic impression Korn was no doubt making on General Dreedle, and the promotion to full colonel that General Dreedle was no doubt going to give him on the spot. He bit his lip so hard it angled his cigarette holder upward. He half expected photographers from the Saturday Evening Post to swoop in through the windows. In his mind, Korn would get invited to give speeches raising money for war bonds, and to model for posters beseeching the same. He'd be so compelling.

Cathcart was ejected from this feverish reverie by General Dreedle leaning over to him and demanding to know who Korn was. Quaking with dread, Cathcart helpfully told him.

"Tell him," General Dreedle snarled behind his cupped hand, "Tell him he makes me sick."

Cathcart was delighted to.

After the briefing, Korn ran over to him and began pulling his arm, high on success, overflowing with excitement. He'd seen Cathcart beaming with joy, and he had naively, trustingly assumed that the news would be good. Confidence had led Korn into a rare shining moment of vulnerability and innocence.

So Cathcart told him.

And he just couldn't help but burst into hearty laughter, seeing Korn's face slacken and collapse with disappointment.

It was love at first sight. He fell madly in love the first time he saw his own self reflected in him.

\--

Cathcart's campaign for personal advancement continued as it always had: He schemed constantly for promotion, and became profoundly stricken with unbearable emotions while mulling over every past and future possibility. His fists would tremble, and his scalding-hot pulse would fill his ears. This happened independently of whether anyone gave any sign of noticing him at all, for how could he really be sure? During one of these outbursts, Korn gave him a small rubber ball to squeeze in his hands. Cathcart looked at him and deftly transferred the rubber ball from his hand to the wastebasket.

The death toll rose, but most of the corpses still vanished neatly and conveniently somewhere over the horizon. Their quaint little cemetery remained manageably small. This was a relief to Cathcart, who disliked thinking about death and resolutely looked away every time he had to drive past. He was in no mood to deal with all that negativity.

None of Cathcart's ploys to accumulate glory and esteem were working. Nobody outside even seemed to care about the steady rise in average combat missions per person (ACMPP) his outfit was achieving! The editors of the Saturday Evening Post (SEP) never responded when he tried to inform them of it, just as they still hadn't responded to him regarding the condolence letters or any of the other article pitches he'd been helpfully sending them. He eventually concluded, with a magnanimous air of charity, that his numbers simply weren't big enough yet for a lay audience to grasp the magnitude of his achievements. Triple digits-- now that was a grand new goal to aim for, something everyone could respect! He raised the number of missions again.

He spent a great deal of time bullying his subordinates, then driving away from them in a cloud of dust, smiling. He was very unhappy.

He hated and feared Captain Yossarian, and developed a new pet theory that Yossarian kept bitching about not wanting to die because he just wanted attention.

One night, Milo bombed his own airfield in the name of free enterprise, killing and wounding a hundred men and planes, which was a terrible black eye for Cathcart to have to report. But on the other hand, Milo had been such a valuable asset to the mess hall that, when Cathcart stepped back and considered it holistically, Milo's continued presence still averaged out to being a feather in his cap. And there was nothing Cathcart could do anyway, because he was a shareholder. Everyone was. So everyone's hands were tied.

The first crop of fig season bled into apricot season, which bled into tomato season, which bled into apple season, supplemented by figs again. Milo's empire expanded. One day, while Cathcart was halfway through signing his name to a new stack of condolence letters, the mail arrived. He was extremely distraught to discover a feature article about Milo Minderbinder in the Saturday Evening Post!!! To appear in the Saturday Evening Post was to be immortalized as Americana itself, and Milo had already accomplished it at the young age of 27! (For the first time, Cathcart's condolence letters came anointed in genuine anguished tears.)

More and more, he liked to summon Korn to his office for no reason at all. His hand would already be on the buzzer before he could make up an excuse. He liked the idea of making Korn drop whatever he was doing to attend to him, and usually still had no excuse ready by the time he arrived. He became worried that Korn was onto him. But he couldn't stop himself from doing it, and Korn always came running.

\--

Cathcart had never wasted his valuable time and energy on romance before. It distinguished him from his peers in a way that he considered alternately laudable and embarrassing. Among other men, he tried to feign their socially-obligated interest in beautiful women, but it was a difficult needle to thread, and he often found himself clumsy and unconvincing. (The farmhouse in the hills and its associated rumors made it easier. He suddenly wondered if that was what Korn had intended all along, and he became warm.)  
There loomed, in the corner of Cathcart's mind, the knowledge of how he'd been similarly fascinated by a small handful of specific men before, politicians, officers, his professors, but he'd always rationalized it as being deeply, platonically impressed by their aura of success.  
He had a rationalization system for physical attractiveness too, which was only another competition for him: he noted it with foppish delight when other people were not as handsome as himself, and he took it as a devastating personal failure whenever he met anyone who was more handsome than himself. It was a competition, and he was in it to win.

Now he was lost. Lieutenant Colonel Korn rubbed a tomato clean against the fabric of his shirt and took a bite, his teeth piercing its thin red skin. The orange slime inside ran down his chin, through the clefts of his jowls.  
Something vestigial inside Cathcart's chest began to hurt, and he had to sit down.

\--

In December, it was chestnut season in Pianosa, and Yossarian bled onto Group HQ's grimy floor. The two of them leaned disdainfully over him as though getting literal blood on their hands would be too on-the-nose. Korn made sure Yossarian was still alive to uphold their odious deal, which was the most important objective. Cathcart made a show of keeping an eye out for the vanished assailant, mostly as a way of looking busy. He was starting to panic.  
He hated whoever this presumptuous overachiever was, who'd gone ahead and done something so suspicious, after they (Korn) had worked so hard to avoid doing anything so suspicious! And what if Yossarian was in on it somehow? Could he have arranged his own stabbing just to make life harder for his poor tormented commander?! He wouldn't put it past him! What if--

Korn elbowed him, and pointed down at Yossarian as though he were a distant landmark. "Look, Chuck. They got him-- right in the liver. Fitting, for our Prometheus," he said, in the slow and cloying voice he reserved for wry observations.  
Cathcart couldn't remember which side the liver was on, but he was calmed. He nodded.

Korn waited only for this acknowledgment of his showing-off, before rolling up his sleeves to summon M.P.s and ambulances and to draft more reports that explained everything and gave them the upper hand. There was to be an official report, back-dated and kept in reserve, to counteract each one of the possible outcomes still branching out from Yossarian's case.  
Cathcart was still annoyed with Korn, who had been particularly insufferable in front of Yossarian that morning. But now Korn was saving his ass yet again. That motherfucker.

\--

Cathcart resolved to say something at the earliest possible opportunity. 'Enfin seuls,' as Korn would say, turned out to be as soon as Cathcart got back to his office that evening (belatedly picking his cigarette holder up off the floor, and putting it into the nearest filing cabinet where he didn't have to see it anymore).

"I don't pull rank often," Cathcart announced, as he prepared to pull rank for the fourth time that day. "But as your commanding officer, I am ordering you to sit right down and finish our talk from this morning. Get to the point and tell me whether you're really on my side or not!" Secretly he thought he sounded a little pathetic, and his blood ran cold at this latest disaster already unfolding uncontrollably before him.  
"Of course I am," said Korn. "Why wouldn't I be? You know my well-being is tied to yours."  
"Then why are you always disrespecting me! In front of Yossarian and everything!"  
"Oh, this again? Personal amusement, mostly."  
"He's supposed to be my nemesis, Korn! My nemesis!!"  
"And I'm only your loyal and indulgent assistant. I think I deserve to tease you a little."   
Cathcart disgustedly receded into his hunched shoulders rather than dignify that with a response.  
With palpable relish, Korn ignored all the perfectly serviceable chairs in the room, and took his seat provocatively on top of Cathcart's desk again. This was another habit of his that Cathcart was fairly certain was meant to provoke him. Korn stretched and settled in for what he already anticipated to be a long chat. His shirt got pulled up at the waist and revealed a small triangle of bare skin where the row of buttons ended.

"Not only am I 'on your side,' in your words, but it's more like I showed up and embedded myself into 'your side' as if in some kind of gall or cyst," Korn said, enjoying any opportunity to be openly sardonic.  
"Korn," Cathcart contributed, "do you plant your flabby ass onto my desk just to provoke me?"  
Korn ignored him. In fact, as he continued, he pointedly veered the topic further away from him. "I'll admit that in my youth I wanted to game the system, but now I think you'll find that I've settled for a comfortable nest inside it-- from which to continue my wicked deeds, of course. I'm well aware it's 'odious'-- I believe that was the word Yossarian and I agreed on when I offered him similar-- and I really don't mind. I get restless when things are too wholesome. I'm much more at home this way, you know."  
Cathcart knew. Korn got bored easily, dissatisfied and restless when things were going smoothly, but whenever something deeply troubling was happening-- and there were many troubling things afoot at the base right now-- he seemed to sink comfortably into cynicism, the way one would sink into a big leather armchair. Happily, with a bone-deep feeling of contentment. His problem was that he could never look away from a good trainwreck. Cathcart felt strangely heartened by the idea.

He moved to get the upper hand. "You oughta know I'm smarter than you think," he boasted. "I already knew you were using me. I always suspected."  
"Is that so. Didn't you know we're chained together? I thought I spread that on with a trowel--"  
"Wait! How about sabotaging me! Did you ever do that?"  
Korn could answer this one immediately. And he was safe to answer with more of the same relaxed honesty, because he knew there was nothing Cathcart could do to him. "Oh, sabotage is a strong word for it. I was only telling you what you wanted to hear."  
Cathcart blanched, and futilely patted his breast pocket for his cigarette holder again. His mind was pulling up memories of the past year, at a pace so frenzied it was almost externally audible. He felt a hand on his arm and realized Korn had gotten up, and he twisted aside to avoid him. He felt sick and cold and just wanted his cigarette holder back. He didn't even want an actual cigarette.  
"There, there," Korn said, still looming over him like a hospital physician. "I say this now because I know you'll agree with me. It's Catch-22: If, way back then, I had instead told you not to do it, I would've immediately become your enemy, and then my input would never have mattered to you anyway. Isn't that right? Is that what you would have wanted for us?"  
"What are you talking about?"  
"Remember when you first raised the number of missions without the authority to do so?" Korn said, casually diminishing his own role. "Wing easily could've taken offense, you know."  
"Wait, wait, did they? Did they?!"  
"I told you, Chuck: It's fine. Luckily for us, they don't actually care either way."  
"Ugh! Don't remind me!"

Cathcart winced as though he'd been physically wounded and turned away, glowering into the middle distance. Just when Korn thought he'd gotten away with it, Cathcart turned back, met his eyes, and suddenly broke into a jeering and triumphant smile. "I knew it, though. I never trusted you, and I was right," he said, scrambling out of his chair in malicious jubilation. It felt as though a weight had been lifted off his chest, and more importantly, it was a significant feather in his cap to have his instincts proven correct. He beamed with pride in his own dazzling intuition. "Boy are you in for it, you lousy stinking son of a bitch. Thinking you're so smart. I knew all along. This time it's I who told you so," he said, jabbing his finger into Korn's chest.  
"You got me."  
"Damn right."  
"I couldn't resist."  
"Why'd you stop? I could take you."  
"You're an adult, you can sabotage your own self just fine."  
"I'm not afraid of you." More jabbing. "Why don't you keep going if you're so smart. Go ahead and stage a coup, see how far you get, you insolent, seditious, chickenshit little snake--"  
"Do you want me to?"  
"--Go ahead and stab me in my sleep, you dirty son of a bitch, see if you--"  
Korn finally took his pointing hand, and pushed it aside. "Now hold on, I wouldn't do anything to actually hurt you. Despite everything, I've found I couldn't let you come to any serious harm." He paused. "Unless it would be funny," he added.  
"Well? Why not?" Cathcart demanded. His excitement had worn off just as quickly as it appeared. He was disappointed to lose the conversational momentum, even though he didn't want to be stabbed either. He was fated, it seemed, to never be satisfied.  
Korn was still holding onto his hand.  
"I suppose my self-interest protects you as well. I can do well playing second fiddle, I've found. Sheltering always a step behind you, whenever you start taking the flak--"  
"Don't remind me!"  
"Fine."

They stood there in silence, until Cathcart began fidgeting regretfully and secretly wished Korn would start talking about him again. Korn had a horrible smug slimy voice and, in the spirit of self-interest, Cathcart couldn't get enough of hearing about himself in it.   
He'd already gotten his confession, and found himself still dissatisfied. He didn't know what else he was expecting. He didn't know what he wanted. He was lost.

(His muscle memory twitched towards the buzzer on his desk.)

\--

Actually, there had been one particularly grim and mortifying night, which after several months still made Cathcart physically cringe to recall. It was a mistake. In a moment of weakness, he had tried to strategize in service of his little preoccupation. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, paced around with his fists in his pockets, and tried to make a secret mental list of specific things that Korn liked.

The list of things that Korn liked went like this:  
-Irony  
-Bourbon*?  
-Tomatoes?,??

But that was as far as Cathcart got. (Korn didn't even like skeet-shooting. What was wrong with him???)  
And Cathcart wasn't even sure about most of his list. Even though Korn always kept a bottle of bourbon in his desk, he rarely drank out of it himself. And it was possible that Korn only liked tomatoes ironically.

Cathcart took swift and decisive action. First, there would be the wave of stinging embarrassment he was sure to feel, no matter what happened. He braced himself for it. Then he brought his trembling fist down upon the buzzer, and asked.

Korn raised an eyebrow.

\--

Back in the present, Korn ran his fingertips idly along Cathcart's clammy, meaty hand. His thumb burrowed in under the clenched fingers. He was, of course, untouchable, and he knew he was untouchable because he knew Cathcart had wanted to touch him for months.

Korn went ahead and twisted the knife.

"...And-- I do enjoy keeping you so close," he said, emphasizing the last word in a manner laden with implication.  
Cathcart stared back at him, a chaotic combination of emotions on his face that twitched it around in all directions and then cancelled each other out into a single completely neutral expression.  
"What?" he asked finally.  
"Aren't we? I dry your tears and hold your hand. You straighten my neckties, and I let you do it. Isn't that funny?"  
"...Korn. You're the only person I trust, and I don't trust you. What the hell are you playing at?"  
"Would you believe me if I said 'nothing'?"  
"Hell no."  
"Serves me right. I reap what I sow," Korn said, lightly, but Cathcart continued to stare numbly at his face until finally the left corner of Korn's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly and his expression crumpled just a little, just enough to remind Cathcart of the way he looked after his briefing.  
Cathcart heaved a sigh of tremendous relief, squeezed Korn's hand, and gave him his most shit-eating grin. "Go on."  
Korn made a show of exhaling wearily through his teeth in lieu of responding, and put his other hand on Cathcart's shoulder. Like waltz partners, though with an air of conscious irony on Korn's part, his hand sliding over Cathcart's collarbone. The warmth and weight and slowness of his touch needled Cathcart unbearably. He squirmed.   
"Well?" he demanded.  
"Well. Where was I before you so rudely interrupted me, my colonel? Oh, yes. Listen closely. I do like you. I wouldn't bother otherwise. I like seeing you strut around with your medals and your big broad shoulders-- knowing you're so delicate underneath."  
(Through Herculean effort, Cathcart staunchly refused to respond to that one. He could feel his face redden, and he got the distinct impression that Korn was drinking him in with his eyes.)  
"I like showing off for you," Korn continued. "I like how you keep needing me to rescue you. Because I like getting to be the one to rescue you."  
"You're so selfish."  
"Don't I know it. But I help you out and you stare at me with tears in your eyes. Crazy about that."  
"Korn," Cathcart muttered, "are you just picking on me again? Geez...."   
"Of course I'm picking on you. I like feeling like a smart-aleck, you know."  
Cathcart was breathing manually, as quietly as he could.   
Korn reached up and wiped some sweat off his brow for him. "Does that settle it for you? Of course I choose your side, because I'd like to think we're inseparable. That's Catch-22: 'Sure, I have a choice. But there's only one real option.'"  
"...Is that really what it says?"  
"One of the interpretations. Look it up if you don't believe me."  
"Sure, sure, I believe you," Cathcart said, knowing full well that he was never going to look it up. Since he'd never seen Catch-22 written down before, he figured it would probably take effort to track down, and therefore he couldn't be bothered to try.  
"Of course," said Korn, who also knew full well that nobody was ever going to look it up. "You know, a funny thing about the catch is that it's not necessarily made up of two opposing parts--"

\--

Cathcart had never said anything, because how could he be sure? He never said anything when he thought he saw Korn stealing glances at his chest or his hips or the shadow of black stubble on his pasty neck. Instead he asked, urgently, whether there was something wrong with the way he looked, or whether there was a spider on him. He never said anything even though Korn's eyes (dark brown, almost black) were always glinting alluringly with some secret mischief or knowledge or inside joke with himself, and Cathcart desperately wanted in on all of it, even though he also suspected they were the type of jokes which stopped being funny as soon as they were explained. Nothing could actually happen between the two of them, of course. It would contradict everything else he knew.

Sometimes, after Cathcart had worn himself out with anger or anxiety or shame, and found himself just shaky and quiet with Korn still rubbing his back or stroking his hair, it was easy enough to pretend that they were a couple, and already going steady somehow, and that afterwards they could eat dinner together privately and listen to radio dramas with their knees touching. He'd wondered whether he could, for once in his life, be satisfied with this thing he already had (unspoken, imaginary). He thought about it and concluded, no, probably not. He was a mover of goalposts, he thought, tormented. Nothing was ever enough for him.

\--

Back in the present, Korn was still talking business. "--incidentally," he was saying, "It's interesting to see Catch-22 again from the other end of the barrel. From our positions as the kings of this godforsaken dump? From that perspective it usually reads more like... 'You can get away with anything that nobody will stop you from doing.' You have the right to do anything, precisely because nobody will stop you. It's a gun aimed at your own men. It's the lousiest, most odious catch there is."  
"I still let you get away with anything," muttered Cathcart, who was not really listening.  
"I know. And you likewise. My dear colonel, you could run this group into the ground and I'd help you do it. Though that needn't be the case. You appeal to their emotions, and I'll appeal to their reason. And I'll apply the catch, of course. They'll be easy enough to control, for the time being. Their morale--"

"Korn, shut up about the group. Jesus Christ, you're annoying. Shut up about the goddamn group, I don't care," Cathcart cried. He'd seen an opportunity, and he was going to take it. He felt completely numb and yet unbearably agitated at the same time.  
"First of all, I still don't trust you. I still think you're a smug sack of shit. So don't think this means anything, because it doesn't. But-- listen, Korn, there's...." He dropped his voice to an agonized whisper, leaning close until his intentions were unmistakable. "There's only one thing I'd like to get away with."

Korn laughed in his face. "Oh, I bet you would."

THE END

\--

Cathcart almost fainted, and Korn scooped him up into his arms perfectly on the way down.  
Still laughing, he began pressing kisses against Cathcart's shocked face, delighted with himself.

THE END

\--

When Cathcart regained control of his legs, he planted his feet on the floor and wrestled his way back upright. He slung an arm around Korn's shoulders, pulling their mouths together in feverish desperation. Escalating with a proper kiss, because he always wanted to have the last word.

Korn grabbed him mid-kiss and corrected his posture, because he always wanted to have the last word too.

THE END


End file.
